Mackenthun: Texas fishing trip includes chasing dinosaur fish

By Scott Mackenthun Special to The Free Press
Aug 22, 2021

Columnist Scott Mackenthun shows the 5 1/2-foot alligator gar caught on the Trinity River in Texas.
Photos by Scott Mackenthun, special to the Free Press



Covered in tough, armor-like ganoid scales, alligator gar are incredible to behold in person.
Scott Mackenthun, special to The Free Press

A random game of chance brought about last week’s first encounter with an alligator gar.

While I get outdoors as much as possible, there still was a rut forming through the familiarity of time spent homebound during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I started getting the itch to travel a couple months ago, and I dared to dream about a destination fishing trip.

Alligator gar came to my mind, and I spent idle time googling the giant fish and following Texas gar fishing guides on social media. Whether it was browser cookies or social media algorithms, I came across a lot of alligator gar content that got the angling juices flowing.

One night, I saw a post from one of the Texas gar guides that his outfit would raffle a guided fishing trip. Entries were $10 with 20 spots available.

I figured that the entry fee was a ticket to daydream, just like a lot of people buy a Powerball ticket when the jackpot runs large. If I didn’t win, and the odds were against me, it hadn’t cost me much and it permitted me to imagine a getaway trip.

A week went by and I forgot about the raffle. One night, I took my brother-in-law fishing on the Mississippi River and was flipping through my phone when I came across the raffle being conducted live. I turned it on just in time to see my number and name get called. I’d won the trip!

Carlos Guerrero of Trinity River Gar Fishing got me on the schedule for a mid-August date, and I booked my airfare. I managed to schedule some other fishing and exploring while in Dallas.

On the eve of the big trip, I waited out a torrential downpour inside the Texas Parks and Wildlife Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. Guerrero messaged me that the rain had hit Dallas hard, ending with just under two inches. The Trinity River rose four or five feet.

Being a river angler, I knew what it meant — the river would run high and dirty, throwing off the fish and fishing until things settled down.

The day started with a 25% chance of storms and ended in a deluge. Had my luck turned? Would my trip be cancelled or a bust? Guerrero had an idea — there was a spot he could take me, not in his boat but walking in, where we’d have a chance at some gar on a part of the river that may have missed much of the rain.

Not one to be afraid of a little hike, I was ready to give it a try and, at the very least, go down swinging.

Alligator gar have had a persecuted existence in the post-settlement United States. Long misunderstood as a nuisance or trash fish, they were wiped out of a large part of their native range by indiscriminate killing recommended by state or federal natural resource authorities, as well as habitat loss.

In the early 20th century, anglers would catch alligator gar via hook and line while another in the boat would shoot the fish with a bow or rifle when it jumped.

Today, a segment of the angling public targets the giant fish for catch-and-release fishing, and management agencies have taken steps to protect and preserve the predator, recognizing it as a valuable member of the native ecosystem.

A number of states value the alligator gar for its potential role in helping control invasive carp. Alligator gar are euryhaline, meaning they can adapt to various levels of salinity in marshes, swamps, brackish estuaries and bays in the Gulf of Mexico.

Alligator gar have ganoid scales, a specialized scale that is nearly impenetrable and tough like a covering of hard armor. These gar are living dinosaurs, an earned title since the fish is relatively unchanged in the fossil record dating back over 100 million years.

As with other primitive fishes, they have retained many ancient characteristics, like the ability to breathe atmospheric air through their swim bladder. Alligator gar is the largest species in the gar family, can grow up to 10 feet long and are estimated to live up to 100 years.

Guerrero came to north Dallas from Mexico at the age of 3. He learned English, holds a work visa for residency and has plans to pursue full citizenship.

Fishing was always in his blood. Once he became smitten with alligator gar, he didn’t want to fish for anything else.

Alligator gar anglers run in small circles, and he kept bumping into a friend that wanted to learn more. Over time, he came to trust Walter Murga, and together, the pair guides anglers through Trinity River Gar Fishing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Murga came to Irving, Texas, from El Salvador at the age of 6. Like Guerrero, he learned English as a second language and plans to turned his visa into citizenship.

The sun has just risen as Guerrero and Murga met me on a nondescript road beyond the outlying southern suburbs of Dallas. It was steamy and hot, a product of the rain the evening before.

A half-mile walk took us along an isolated stretch of the Trinity River. There was just enough light to make out dark shapes just below the river’s lazily flowing, olive-drab surface — the black outlines of schools of buffalo fish.

Rebar mounted rod holders were pushed into the viscous Texas mud on the stream’s banks at openings in the treeline that gave us a good view upstream and down. Long, heavy action rods with 100-pound braided line cast huge chunks of cut up carp on small treble hooks on wire leaders, loosely equivalent to northerners using quick strike rigs for northern pike on tip-ups.

“Now we wait,” Carlos said as the last rod is cast.

Texas has no limits on fishing rods used, but to keep things from getting tangled, we launched six baits into the river at equally spaced intervals. Guerrero and Murga watched line and rod tips carefully, the mark of good live and dead bait anglers.

The baits were bumped frequently, but it’s often being played with by softshell turtles. The turtles have telltale behavioral signs, like constant pecking or swimming off short distances with the bait.


After an hour and a half, we moved to a clearing further downstream, hoping to be rid of the pesky turtles.

Throughout the morning, alligator gar are rising to the surface, rolling around or gulping air before descending into the river’s murkiness. One large individual takes away Guerrero’s and my breath.

“That was a seven-footer for sure,” Carlos said.

After seven years of guiding, he’s still in awe of these fish. The river is teeming with gar, but we can’t seem to convince any to take our bait.

Another hour passed when suddenly one of the lines shot out. We scrambled to the rod and pull line of the spinning reel arbor, hoping the fish didn’t detect any resistance and drop the bait.

Alligator gar must be given time to carry the bait off in their mouth. For four or five minutes, we gave the fish line as it started to cut upstream.

We neared the end of the spool, when Carlos announced that even though the fish hadn’t stopped running with the bait, we had no choice but to set the hook.

I reeled up the slack, felt the weight, then swung the rod tip backward while reeling in an attempt to drive the hook into the fish’s bony mouth.

The line tightened and began running out. I added a couple more hard pulls to ensure a set hook.

The fish kept moving upriver, unabated. Eventually, I stopped the fish and began gaining line, but it came close to the nearshore bank.

I worried that it will find some unseen snag. I worked to guide the fish toward deeper water and suddenly, she jumped out of the water and gnashed her teeth.

Fearful she’d thrown the hook, I was relieved to find her still attached.

The fish pushed out to the main current and the fight continued, with Guerrero and Murga reminding me to keep the rod tip down so I don’t encourage another jump.

Because alligator gar have such incredibly sharp teeth, guides don’t carry landing nets as the fish would simply tear holes through them.

Instead, everyone relies on the most Texas thing you can think of — a rope is used to “lasso” the fish around it’s hard, bony head and haul it to shore.

Guerrero worked the rope around my fishing line as we brought in the gar.

The tensest moments of the entire battle was trying to attach the rope. On three occasions, as Guerrero slid the rope over the rostrum, the tired fish found the energy to dart back into the river, pulling drag each time and making our hearts race.

We spotted the treble hook in the bony corner of the mouth and feared it would pull out. Finally, we got the 5 1/2-foot gar ashore and took a few pictures.

Despite the appearance of hanging precariously, we found the treble hook was well-seated. Because gar can breathe atmospheric air, the fish can be kept out of water far longer than other sport fish.

I took a few pictures of the incredible fish’s head and back, then Guerrero picked up the fish to hand it to me.

While Guerrero picked up the fish, the gar opened its mouth and a fold of Guerrero’s T-shirt fell inside just as the fish closed its mouth. After waiting a second, the fish opened its mouth again and the shirt fell out with several fresh holes.

You wouldn’t want your hand in that girl’s mouth!

After a couple quick pictures, the fish was released to fight another day.

Eventually the humidity broke as well as the overcast skies, and the hot Texas sun came out of hiding to warm and dry the muddy ground and usher in the conclusion of the day’s trip.

Two more bait pickups happened, but each time, the gar dropped the bait. Such is life for alligator gar anglers — you battle turtles, you hope the gar keep the bait long enough to get hooked up, and you get snubbed by many fish.

All for a chance to reel in an incredible fish in an incredible place.

Scott Mackenthun is an outdoors enthusiast who has been writing about hunting and fishing since 2005. He resides in New Prague and may be contacted at scott.mackenthun@gmail.com.

Alberta paleontology students need help getting dinosaur bones from remote location

By Heide Pearson Global News
Updated August 12, 2021 

University of Alberta students dig out the skeleton of a hadrosaur in the Badlands. Courtesy: Mark Powers

A group of paleontology students with the University of Alberta are hoping that by air or water they’ll get a hadrosaur moving across the southern Alberta Badlands once again.


Mark Powers and his team of students are working hard to excavate the skeleton of a duck-billed dinosaur first located in 2018, as part of a student-led dig that started in 2015.

READ MORE: Little girl finds unique fossil at Alberta lake

The skeleton is embedded in a hill in a remote location between the Tolman Bridge and Drumheller, near the Morrin Bridge along the Red Deer River.

Unlike most skeletons found, which are typically lying down, this dinosaur fossil is in a top-down position, Powers said, meaning it’s a unique excavation.

“It’s a very interesting challenge to excavate,” he said.

“But it also leads to a lot of interesting sort of concepts of taxonomy, or the burial process, and how it was buried and what happened at the end of its life.”

View image in full screen

Part of a harosaur skeleton being excavated by University of Alberta students in the Badlands. Courtesy: Mark Powers

However, that’s not the only challenge these students are facing when it comes to unearthing this particular prehistoric creature.

First of all, it’s a three-kilometre hike to and from the site from their campsite near Starland, taking them roughly an hour and a half.

Last year, they were unable to make any progress on the dig because of COVID-19.

Now a smaller crew has fewer days to complete its work and while it’s great to be digging up more pieces of the ancient herbivore, the specimen pieces are so large and heavy, the students are struggling to get them out.

“If we could get it onto a boat, even if we don’t drive the boat, we could literally just walk it along the river, back to the camp and then load it into a truck,” Powers said.

“So that would be the cheapest and most ideal scenario.”

View image in full screen

University of Alberta students dig out the skeleton of a hadrosaur in the Badlands. Courtesy: Mark Powers

Typically, specimen pieces, called jackets, can be carried out if they’re under 70 pounds, but these are much larger, weighing in at about 120 pounds each.

Powers said the students are hoping to find people who will donate their time and resources to help get the fossils out along the river.

READ MORE: 12-year-old Nathan finds rare dinosaur fossil ‘of great significance’ in southern Alberta

“It is great when there’s volunteers involved, just because there’s a lot of hurdles as a student and a researcher to try and go through the insurance and all those sorts of things to actually acquire a boat,” he said.

“And then there’s extra funding in terms of renting the boat, which exceeds our budget because our budget primarily covers our staying costs.”

Powers can be reached at powers1@ualberta.ca.

Scientists locate likely origin for the dinosaur-killing asteroid


By Ailsa Harvey 

The impactor traveled further than previously predicted, before colliding with Earth.

A large asteroid caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction. 

(Image credit: Getty)

The asteroid credited with the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago is likely to have originated from the outer half of the solar system’s main asteroid belt, according to new research by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI)

Known as the Chicxulub impactor, this large object has an estimated width of 6 miles (9.6 kilometers) and produced a crater in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula that spans 90 miles (145 kilometers). After its sudden contact with Earth, the asteroid wiped out not only the dinosaurs, but around 75 percent of the planet’s animal species. It is widely accepted that this explosive force created was responsible for the mass extinction that ended the Mesozoic era.

Researchers used computer models to analyse how asteroids are pulled from their orbit in different areas of the asteroid belt and drawn towards planets. The observations of 130,000 model asteroids, along with data and behaviour seen in other known impactors, found that objects are 10 times more likely to reach Earth from the outer asteroid belt than previously thought.

Prior to crashing into Earth, the extinction-causing asteroid orbited the sun with others, in the main asteroid belt. This concentrated band lies between planets Mars and Jupiter, with its contents usually kept in place by the forces of gravity. Before this study was released, scientists thought that very few of Earth’s impactors escaped from the belt’s outer half. But, researchers at SwRI discovered that “escape hatches” could be created by thermal forces, which pull more distant asteroids out of orbit and in the direction of Earth.

The objects found in these outermost parts of the asteroid belt include many carbonaceous chondrite impactors. These are dark, porous and carbon-containing rocks which can also be found on Earth. Leading up to this research, other scientists have attempted to learn more about the object that doomed the dinosaurs. This included examinations of 66-million-year-old rocks. By doing this, geologists discovered that the Chicxulub asteroid had a similar composition to today’s carbonaceous chondrites.

In the solar system, many objects surrounding Earth share similar composition to this impactor, however they are all much smaller, with widths around one mile. Researchers at SwRI used NASA’s Pleiades Supercomputer to analyse how asteroids furthest from the sun would have evolved over hundreds of millions of years. One aim was to see where the bigger asteroids lie today.

“To explain their absence, several past groups have simulated large asteroid and comet breakups in the inner solar system, looking at surges of impacts on Earth with the largest one producing Chicxulub crater,” one of the study’s researchers, Dr. William Bottke, said.

“While many of these models had interesting properties, none provided a satisfying match to what we know about asteroids and comets. It seemed like we were still missing something important.”

By looking at wide timescales of the Chicxulub asteroid, the scientists could predict that a 6-mile asteroid is likely to come into contact with Earth once every 250 million years. Their model showed almost 50 percent of these significant impactors to be of the same carbonaceous chondrite composition.

Details of the new study will be published in the November 2021 issue of the journal Icarus. One of its authors, Dr Simone Marchi, described the findings as “intriguing.”

“The team’s simulations can, for the first time, reproduce the orbits of large asteroids on the verge of approaching Earth,” said Marchi. “Our explanation for the source of the Chicxulub impactor fits in beautifully with what we already know about how asteroids evolve.”

According to co-author Dr. David Nesvorný, the new findings can teach us about other sizable asteroids. “This work will help us better understand the nature of the Chicxulub impact,” he said, “while also telling us where other large impactors from Earth’s deep past might have originated.”

Origin of dinosaur-ending asteroid possibly found. And it's dark.


By Mara Johnson-Groh

About 66 million years ago, an estimated 6-mile-wide (9.6 kilometers) object slammed into Earth, triggering a cataclysmic series of events that resulted in the demise of non-avian dinosaurs.

Now, scientists think they know where that object came from.

According to new research, the impact was caused by a giant dark primitive asteroid from the outer reaches of the solar system's main asteroid belt, situated between Mars and Jupiter. This region is home to many dark asteroids — space rocks with a chemical makeup that makes them appear darker (reflecting very little light) compared with other types of asteroids

Related: The 5 mass extinction events that shaped the history of Earth

"I had a suspicion that the outer half of the asteroid belt — that's where the dark primitive
asteroids are — may be an important source of terrestrial impactors," said David Nesvorný, a researcher from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, who led the new study. "But I did not expect that the results [would] be so definitive," adding that this might not be true for smaller impactors.

Clues about the object that ended the reign of non-avian dinosaurs have previously been found buried in the Chicxulub crater, a 90-mile-wide (145 km) circular scar in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula left by the object's collision. Geochemical analysis of the crater has suggested that the impacting object was part of a class of carbonaceous chondrites — a primitive group of meteorites that have a relatively high ratio of carbon and were likely made very early on in the solar system's history.

Based on this knowledge, scientists have previously tried to pinpoint the impactor's origin, but many theories have crumbled over time. Researchers have previously suggested the impactor came from a family of asteroids from the inner part of the main asteroid belt, but follow-up observations of those asteroids found they didn't have the right composition. Another study, this one published in February in the journal Scientific Reports, suggested the impact was caused by a long-period comet, Live Science reported. But that research has since come under criticism, according to a June paper published in the journal Astronomy & Geophysics.

In the new study, published in the November 2021 issue of the journal Icarus, researchers developed a computer model to see how often main belt asteroids escape toward Earth and if such escapees could be responsible for the dinosaur-ending crash.

Simulating over hundreds of millions of years, the model showed thermal forces and gravitational tugs from planets periodically slingshotting large asteroids out of the belt. On average, an asteroid more than 6 miles wide from the outer edge of the belt was flung into a collision course with Earth once every 250 million years, the researchers found. This calculation makes such an event five times more common than previously thought and consistent with the Chicxulub crater created just 66 million years ago, which is the only known impact crater thought to have been produced by such a large asteroid in the last 250 million years. Furthermore, the model looked at the distribution of "dark" and "light" impactors in the asteroid belt and showed half of the expelled asteroids were the dark carbonaceous chondrites, which matches the type thought to have caused Chicxulub crater.

RELATED CONTENT

—Wipe out: History's 7 most mysterious extinctions

—Photos: A new look at T. rex and its relatives

—Dino graveyard: Photos of Dinosaur National Monument

"This is just an excellent paper," said Jessica Noviello, NASA fellow in the postdoctoral management program at the Universities Space Research Association at Goddard Space Flight Center, who was not involved with the new research. "I think they make a good argument for why [the Chicxulub impactor] could have come from that part of the solar system."

In addition to possibly explaining the origin of the Chicxulub crater impactor, the findings also help scientists understand the origins of other asteroids that have struck Earth further in the past. Neither of the other two largest impact craters on Earth, the Vredefort crater in South Africa and the Sudbury Basin in Canada, have known impactor origins. The results could also help scientists predict where future large impactors might originate..

"We find in the study that some 60% of large terrestrial impactors come from the outer half of the asteroid belt ... and most asteroids in that zone are dark/primitive," Nesvorný told Live Science. "So there is a 60% — 3 in 5 — probability that the next one will come from the same region."

Originally published on Live Science.

Where did the asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs come from?

20 Aug 2021

GETTY IMAGES

Scientists have worked out where the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and most of life on Earth came from.

This asteroid is officially known as the Chicxulub impactor and smashed into the planet 66 million years ago.

The space rock itself was six miles wide, but it hit the surface of the Earth with so much force that it left a crater that is 90-miles wide. Today the impact crater is buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula on the coast of Mexico.

Scientists have been trying to work out the origin of this asteroid for several years, but a new study by the Southwest Research Institute based in Texas suggests that the dinosaur-destroying rock came from the outer half of the asteroid belt in our own solar system.

More space stories like this:

Car-sized asteroid has near-miss with Earth!

Asteroid 'definitely' caused dinosaur extinction say scientists

Nasa captures rare moment comet shatters into pieces

The asteroid belt

GETTY IMAGES

The asteroid belt is located between Mars and Jupiter and is the left over bits of rock from when the planets in our solar system formed over four billion years ago.

Scientists used computer models to analyse how asteroids in that region of space are pulled from their orbit around the sun into different parts of the solar system.

It included a number of factors such as bumping into other asteroids, getting knocked out of the belt and into space.

The team also discovered "escape hatches", which are essentially where an asteroid can move out of the belt over time. Radiation in space can nudge the position of asteroids and eventually, combined with the gravitational pull of planets, the asteroids can slip out of the belt and into space, moving toward Earth or anywhere else really.

What is radiation?


Radiation is energy that moves from one thing to another.


What's the connection?

So how did the team connect the dinosaur-destroying asteroid with those found in the asteroid belt? Well, the scientists examined what the asteroids are made of.

"We decided to look for where the siblings of the Chicxulub impactor might be hiding," said David Nesvorný, lead author of the research.

GETTY IMAGES

By analysing 66-million-year-old rocks on Earth, the team worked out that the Chicxulub impactor asteroid had a similar make-up to space rock called "carbonaceous chondrite impactors" found in the asteroid belt.

Carbonaceous chondrite impactors contain carbon in the form of graphite - that's the same stuff that's inside your school pencils!
So could this happen again?

To enjoy the CBBC Newsround website at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on.
WATCH: How Nasa plans to stop asteroids hitting Earth in the future (2017)

The short answer is yes - but you don't need to worry!

The team tracked 130,000 asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. They discovered that similar rocks to the one that caused the dinosaurs' extinction were hard to find, and were generally much smaller. The biggest was about one mile in length.

However, the research did reveal that bigger asteroids were at least 10 times more likely to hit the Earth than previously thought.

But, any collision with large asteroids will happen once every 250 million years or so on average, so there's still another 184 million years to go until another asteroid similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs heads for our planet.

Ground-breaking Bristol research has found that the dinosaurs were in decline for 10 million years before an asteroid collided with earth


By Alex Lawrence, MSc Palaeobiology

Ground-breaking Bristol research has found that the dinosaurs were in decline for 10 million years before an asteroid collided with earth leading to their eventual demise. This could help explain why some animal groups survived the asteroid strike while dinosaurs and other groups perished.

When people hear the term ‘mass extinction’ the first thing that comes to mind is likely to be the dinosaurs. The idea of a dramatic asteroid impact powerful enough to wipe out these giant animals has captured the imaginations of many, and although the asteroid impact is widely accepted by scientists as the reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs, questions still remain. How exactly did the impact result in extinction, and why did some groups survive while others disappeared?

University of Bristol’s Professor Mike Benton, working alongside researchers from the University of Montpellier in France and the University of Alberta in Canada, appears to have found the answer

.

The time of the dinosaurs may already have been coming to a close before the fated asteroid strike | Unsplash / Vitor Fontes

In a five-year effort researchers compiled over 1,600 fossil samples from the Cretaceous period, the last of the three geological periods during which dinosaurs roamed the earth. They used the presence and absence of species in the fossil record to look at rates of speciation (when new species appear) and extinction. Combining these rates gave the researchers the diversification rate, allowing them to see changes in dinosaur biodiversity.

The researchers looked at the diversity trends of 6 dinosaur families which contain a host of beloved species including triceratops, velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus rex. These families cover the most well-represented species in the fossil record from the Cretaceous period.

Professor Benton and his team examined the diversity trends of all dinosaurs together, and of each family individually. Additionally, they split the families into herbivores and carnivores to see if the trends differed based on diet and lifestyle. Using a sophisticated statistical modelling technique called Bayesian analysis they were able to account for bias from uncertainties in the fossil record.

An exhibit at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery shows how some groups survived the asteroid strike while others went extinct | Epigram / Alex Lawrence

The results showed that all dinosaur groups were successful throughout the Cretaceous period until a drop in speciation rates and a great increase in extinction rates occurred in the last 10 million years prior to the asteroid strike. This means there was a steep decline in dinosaur diversity before the final blow. Professor Benton said ‘we were surprised to find this clear result of dinosaur decline for all the major groups that we looked at, even the hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, which were the most successful plant-eaters of the time.’

The scientists then went on to look for clues as to why diversity changed. They studied potential drivers of diversity trends, including temperature, sea level, and the diversity of different plant families that were around in the Cretaceous period.

Results found that two major drivers seemed to have caused the diversity declines. Firstly, a drop in temperatures as climates became cooler, likely due to dinosaurs finding it harder to cope with cold temperatures than groups like mammals. When asked about novel findings from the study regarding only some animal groups going extinct Professor Benton said “the second part of the study, where we tested all kinds of possible explanations for the decline helped because it identified, for the first time, that declining global temperatures are a plausible explanatory variable.”

The only dinosaurs to survive the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, birds became highly successful | Epigram / Alex Lawrence

Secondly, herbivores started to decline before carnivores. This is likely because the loss of herbivores has knock-on effects on ecosystems leading to instability and a greater chance of other extinctions or even total ecosystem collapse.

Conservative crocodiles outshone by their ancestors

Digging for gold: success of plants unearthed by ancient faeces

Although the study uses the most recent fossil data and analytical methods there are always new fossils to be found. When asked about the next steps for the research Professor Benton stated that: ‘It would be good to extend the work to other continents – we just looked at North America, which has the best fossil record. We had also done global-scale studies earlier which also showed the decline, but it needs more detailed exploration in other parts of the world.’

Feautured image: Unsplash / Jon Butterworth

If the asteroid strike didn't happen, do you think that dinosaurs might still be around today?

Beat-up duck-billed dinosaur had cracked tailbones and 'cauliflower' tumor. But it just wouldn't die.


By Mindy Weisberger 

The tenacious hadrosaur lived for some time after it was injured.


Signs of damage in the hadrosaur's fossilized tail and foot bones revealed that it had been gravely injured in life. (Image credit: José Antonio Peñas (SINC))

A dinosaur that lived about 70 million years ago suffered from fractured tailbones and a "cauliflower-like" foot tumor, a new fossil analysis shows.

But despite these painful maladies, the dinosaur survived for some time after it was hurt.

When late paleontologist Jaime Eduardo Powell discovered the skeleton in Argentina's Río Negro Province in the 1980s, he observed that one of the feet was injured, and he described the injury as a possible fracture. However, when researchers recently reexamined the fossil, they found that the foot deformity was instead caused by a large, possibly cancerous tumor.


Using computed X-ray tomography (CT) scans and microscopic analysis of bone samples, the researchers also identified fractures in two vertebrae in the middle of the dinosaur's tail, and there were erosions in the bone around the fractures that may have been caused by infections. As the fractures were partially healed, they likely weren't directly responsible for the dinosaur's death, scientists reported in a new study, published in the August 2021 issue of the journal Cretaceous Research.


"We cannot quantify how long it lived afterwards, which means that it could have lived for months or years," lead study author Penélope Cruzado-Caballero, a scientist in the Research Institute of Paleobiology and Geology for Argentina's National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), said in a statement.


Who was this beat-up dinosaur? Bonapartesaurus rionegrensis was a 30-foot-long (9-meters) hadrosaur — plant-eating dinosaurs known for their broad, ducklike mouths. Hadrosaurs were large and mostly bipedal ornithischians, or bird-hipped dinosaurs, that lived during the latter part of the Cretaceous period (about 145.5 million to 65.5 million years ago) in the Americas, Asia and Europe.


Analysis of the hadrosaur's skeleton showed how injuries would have plagued this unfortunate dinosaur. (Image credit: José Antonio Peñas (SINC))

Some hadrosaur species sported ornate crests on their skulls, which may have been used for communication. Paleontologists don't know if Bonapartesaurus had a crest (the skeleton was missing its skull), but what attracted their attention was the dinosaur's left hind limb, where a large, bony overgrowth gave the foot "a cauliflower-like appearance," Cruzado-Caballero said in the statement.

The study authors found no fracture when they examined the bulging bone lump, but CT scans showed reduced bone density and ravaged bone tissue in surrounding areas, suggesting that the lump was a tumor. Dinosaurs in this group walked with most of their weight on their toes, and they had a high foot pad. This pad could have cushioned Bonapartesaurus' foot, and the injury — as dire as it appeared — might not have caused a limp, the researchers reported.

Their scans also revealed a first hint of cracks in two tail bones and subsequent infections in the surrounding bone. Fractures such as these could have happened because the hadrosaur was trampled, struck by an object, attacked by a predator, "or simply due to running stress," the scientists wrote in the study. "These are all good hypotheses, but we cannot determine which one is more likely."

Originally published on Live Science.

Dinosaur bones became griffins, volcanic eruptions were gods fighting – geomythology looks to ancient stories for hints of scientific truth

A mythical creature born of a misinterpreted fossil? 

Akkharat Jarusilawong/iStock via Getty Images Plus

August 6, 2021 

Everyone loves a good story, especially if it’s based on something true.

Consider the Greek legend of the Titanomachy, in which the Olympian gods, led by Zeus, vanquish the previous generation of immortals, the Titans. As recounted by the Greek poet Hesiod, this conflict makes for a thrilling tale – and it may preserve kernels of truth.

The eruption around 1650 B.C. of the Thera volcano could have inspired Hesiod’s narrative. More powerful than Krakatoa, this ancient cataclysm in the southern Aegean Sea would have been witnessed by anyone living within hundreds of miles of the blast.

The massive eruption of the Thera volcano more than 3,500 years ago left behind a hollowed out island, today known as Santorini. 

Steve Jurvetson, CC BY

Historian of science Mott Greene argues that key moments from the Titanomachy map on to the eruption’s “signature.” For example, Hesiod notes that loud rumbles emanated from the ground as the armies clashed; seismologists now know that harmonic tremors – small earthquakes that sometimes precede eruptions – often produce similar sounds. And the impression of the sky – “wide Heaven” – shaking during the battle could have been inspired by shock waves in the air caused by the volcanic explosion. Hence, the Titanomachy may represent the creative misreading of a natural event.

Greene’s conjecture is an example of geomythology, a field of study that gleans scientific truths from legends and myths. Created by geologist Dorothy Vitaliano nearly 50 years ago, geomythology focuses on tales that may record, however dimly, occurrences like volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes, as well as their aftereffects, such as the exposures of strange-looking bones. These events appear to have been, in some cases, so traumatic or wonder-inducing that they may have inspired preliterate peoples to “explain” them through fables.

I’ve just published the first textbook in the field, “Geomythology: How Common Stories Reflect Earth Events.” As the book demonstrates, researchers in both the sciences and the humanities practice geomythology. In fact, geomythology’s hybrid nature may help to bridge the gap between the two cultures. And despite its orientation toward the past, geomythology might also provide powerful resources for meeting environmental challenges in the future.

The legend of a monster wave told by the Moken people gave them a leg up during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP via Getty Images

Passed-down tales that explain the world

Some geomyths are relatively well known. One comes from the Moken people in Thailand, who survived the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, a catastrophe that killed some 228,000 people. On that terrible day, the Moken heeded an old tale about the “laboon”, or “monster wave,” a legend passed down to them over countless campfires.

According to the fable, from time to time a people-devouring wave would surge and move far inland. However, those who fled to high ground in time, or, counterintuitively, put out into deeper waters, would survive. Following the legend’s advice, the Moken preserved their lives.

Other geomyths might have started as explanations for prehistoric remains that didn’t readily map onto any known creature.

The Cyclopes, the tribe of one-eyed ogres that terrorized Odysseus and his crew, might have sprung from the findings of prehistoric elephant skulls in Greece and Italy. In 1914, paleontologist Othenio Abel pointed out that these fossils feature large facial cavities in front, from which the trunk would have protruded. The eye sockets, by contrast, are easily overlooked on the sides of the cranium. To the ancient Greeks who dug them up, these skulls might have seemed like the remains of monocular, humanoid giants.

The seemingly fanciful griffin – the eagle-headed, lion-bodied hybrid – might have a similar origin story and could be based on the creative misrecognition of Protoceratops dinosaur remains in the Gobi Desert.

Still other geomyths may point to natural events. Indigenous tales tell of “fire devils” that flew down from the Sun and plunged to Earth, killing everything in the vicinity when they landed. These “devils” were probably meteors witnessed by Aboriginal Australians. In some cases, the tales anticipate findings of Western science by decades, even centuries

.
Researchers set up monitoring equipment at Africa’s Lake Nyos that will sound an alarm if carbon dioxide levels become dangerous again. 

Louise Gubb/Corbis Historical via Getty Images

Numerous African folktales ascribe mischief to certain lakes, including the lakes’ apparent ability to change color, shift locations and even turn deadly. Such legends have been corroborated by actual events. The most notorious example is the “explosion” of Cameroon’s Lake Nyos in 1986 when carbon dioxide, long trapped on the bottom, abruptly surfaced. Within a day, 1,746 people, along with thousands of birds, insects and livestock, were suffocated by the CO2 cloud the lake burped up. Lakes are sometimes associated with death and the underworld in Mediterranean stories as well: Lake Avernus, near Naples, is mythologized as such in Virgil’s “Aeneid.”

Animal encounters may inform other geomyths. Herodotus’ “Histories”, written about 430 B.C., claims that dog-sized ants guard certain gold deposits in regions of East Asia. In his 1984 book “The Ants’s Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas,” ethnologist Michel Peissel uncovered Herodotus’ possible inspiration: mountain-dwelling marmots, who to this day “mine” gold by layering their nests with gold dust.
Fanciful stories that feed into science

Geomythology is not a science. The old stories are often garbled or contradictory, and it’s always possible that they preceded the real events that today’s researchers link them with. Imaginative pre-scientific peoples might well have dreamed up various tales out of whole cloth and only later found “confirmation” in Earth events or discoveries.

Yet as noted, geomyths like the griffin and Cyclopes arose from specific geographical regions that feature remains not found elsewhere. The likelihood of preliterate peoples first inventing tales that then somehow corresponded closely to later fossil finds seems like a stunning coincidence. More likely, at least with some geotales, the discoveries preceded the narratives

.
Pottery from the fifth century B.C. depicting the blinding of a Cyclops. 

DEA/G. Nimatallah/De Agostini Editorial via Getty Images

Either way, geomythology can serve as a valuable ally to science. Most often, it can help to corroborate scientific findings.

Yet geomyths can sometimes go further and correct scientific results or raise alternative hypotheses. For example, geologist Donald Swanson argues that the Pele legends of Hawaii suggest that the Kilauea volcanic caldera was formed considerably earlier than previous studies had indicated. He alleges that “volcanologists were led astray” in their research on the caldera’s age “by not paying close attention to the Hawaiian oral traditions.”

Though focused on the past, geomythology may also help to set future scientific agendas. Today’s researchers might become familiar with myths that feature weird creatures or extreme weather, and then examine the stories’ places of origins for geological and paleontological clues. Such tales might provide invaluable links with real occurrences that took place long before there was a scientist around to record them. Indeed, such stories could have endured precisely because they memorialized a traumatic or wrenching incident and were thus passed down from one generation to the next as a literal cautionary tale.
Creating geomyths today for future generations

Another exciting area for geomythical study is not just the researching of old myths but the creation of new ones that could alert future generations of potential dangers, whether these peoples might live in tsunami-prone regions, near nuclear waste sites like Yucca Mountain, or in some equally risky area.

What if, millennia from now, no one can read or understand a sign like this?

Department of Energy – Carlsbad Field Office, CC BY

Nuclear waste can remain radioactive for mind-boggling amounts of time, in some cases up to many tens of thousands of years. While placing warning labels on deposits of radioactive materials seems sensible, languages morph constantly and there’s no guarantee that present-day ones will even be spoken, let alone be understandable, in the distant future. Indeed, even stranger to contemplate is the extinction of the human race, an event that some philosophers see as potentially closer than we might think. How, if at all, might we warn our distant progeny or, beyond them, our eventual post-human successors?


Creating notification systems that persist throughout time is an area in which myths could be useful. Famous tales often last for many generations, sometimes proving more durable than the languages in which they were first told or spoken. Indeed, C.S. Lewis wrote that one hallmark of myth is that it “would equally delight and nourish if it had reached [us] by some medium which involved no words at all – say by a mime, or a film.”

Because they are less tied to language than literature is, myths may be easier to transmit across cultures and time. The oldest one currently on record is an Aboriginal tale concerning a volcano; it may be 35,000 years old.

Geomythology could thus contribute to a linguistic field known as nuclear semiotics, which grapples with the problem of warning distant generations about hazardous waste. An intentionally created geomyth might preserve and transmit crucial information from the nuclear age to our descendants, with considerable effectiveness.

Author

Timothy John Burbery
Professor of English, Marshall University

 

Triceratops horn bone donated by Ponoka family ‘important’ specimen

Dr. Caleb Brown, left, and Garry McCue hold the piece of Triceratops horn being donated to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Note: Image was altered to remove location-identifying information. (Emily Jaycox/Ponoka News)

Fossil is part of a nasal bone and horn of a Triceratops

• EMILY JAYCOX 
• Aug. 21, 2021 

      

The McCue family in Ponoka donated an artifact to the Royal Tyrrell Museum, and museum experts say it is a significant specimen.

Garry McCue hunted for dinosaur fossils for nearly 60 years across the province.

“Friends and I, when we were young, decided we didn’t like the idea of hunting,” said McCue.

“We decided we were just looking for an excuse when we went hunting to be with the boys, out in the countryside. We found some fossils and we decided, ‘Why don’t we start looking for dinosaurs?’” he said.

“We found a lot.”

Later, he would continue the tradition and hunt for dinosaur bones with his children.

Now, decades later, the family has quite the collection and it’s time to find new homes for some of their pieces.

“As we’re 75, it’s time to move things on … we’re re-homing things,” said McCue.

One of the first items to be rehomed turned out to be a significant find when it comes to understanding which species of Triceratops lived in Alberta.

The specimen was found somewhere along the Red Deer River Valley north of Drumheller.

Dr. Caleb Brown, paleontologist and curator of dinosaur systematics and evolution at the Tyrrell, came to Ponoka to see the piece last month.

The fossil is part of the nasal bone, including part of the horn, of a Triceratops, according to Dr. Brown.

“Given the shape of the horn, the specimen is identifiable to species level: Triceratops prorsus,” he said.

Brown says Triceratops is well-known from late Cretaceous deposits in the United States but are less common in Alberta.

There are currently two species of Triceratops recognized in the American Hell Creek Formation: Triceratops horridus and Triceratops prorsus.

“Several Triceratops specimens have been found along the Red Deer River Valley over the last 80 years, but they are all incomplete and lack the diagnostic parts needed to determine which species is present here,” said Brown.

“While this specimen is only a very small chunk of the entire skull, it is important because it shows some of the diagnostic features that allow us to determine which of the two species of Triceratops occurs in the Red Deer River Valley.”

Identifying the species of Triceratops allows for fine-scale comparisons between the dinosaurs that lived in Alberta and helps to put Alberta’s dinosaur fossil record at the very end of the Cretaceous in context with the record from the western States, he says.

Fossils found since 1978 are protected under the Historical Recourses Act and are owned by the province. This piece was found by the McCues before the act came into effect.

“Given its scientific importance, this will allow the specimen to be researched, and may even end up on display. The great result of the story is that dinosaur bones collected a long time ago can still provide new information,” said Brown.

While Brown was there to see the piece, the McCues were treated to an evaluation of some of their collection. It was the first time the items had been assessed.

Some of the pieces were determined to be Hadrosaur bone — one of the most commonly found dinosaur fossils found in Alberta — while others turned out to be pseudo-fossils, (ironstone or other materials that have taken the shape of a fossil).

What was shown was only an estimated four per cent of their entire collection.

“These are pieces that I thought Caleb should see,” said McCue.

When it comes to identifying fossils, a variety of clues are used such as the shape of the bone and any obvious diagnostic features.

“Things like size, texture and internal structure can also really help narrow down which type of bone or animal it is,” said Brown.

“Some other things like colour and surface markings can also give clues as to where the fossil came from and how long it has been exposed at the surface.”

 

Bizarre dinosaur had a mane of fur and rods on its shoulders

By Karina Shah

Ubirajara jubatus was an unusual dinosaur

Bob Nicholls / Paleocreations.com

A newly identified species of dinosaur had some unusual features, including a long mane of fur down its back and stiff rod-like structures projecting from its shoulders.

The dinosaur lived around 110 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period. Dino Frey at the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe, Germany, and his colleagues discovered the species while examining slabs of limestone from north-eastern Brazil.

They took high resolution X-ray images of the slabs, which revealed the torso of an unknown species of dinosaur, measuring approximately 50 centimetres long.

Most peculiarly, the researchers identified two rod-like structures that stuck out from each shoulder. These 15-centimetre projections were made from keratin, the same protein in our nails and hair. They were probably used to attract potential mates or even intimidate competition, says Frey.

These structures haven’t been seen before on dinosaurs. “Totally weird!” says Michael Benton at University of Bristol, UK, who wasn’t involved in the study. “The fossil shows amazing preservation of structures other than the skeleton, including decayed remains of the guts and body organs, as well as the feathers and long rod-like structures.”

The team named the dinosaur Ubirajara jubatus, meaning “lord of the spear”, after a name used by the Tupi people indigenous to Brazil. The researchers suspect that the specimen is a young male, given the size of the dinosaur’s spine, but they are unable to confirm this as the fossil is partial.

The remains also showed a well-preserved, long, thick mane of fur running down the creature’s back. The impressive mane measured 11 centimetres at its tallest point. “This is the longest mane ever reported in any dinosaur,” says Frey.

The researchers think the dinosaur could lower its mane when not on display using muscles at the root of the hairs. This would have allowed the dinosaur to streamline its body for speed, as well as to release or capture heat.

Journal reference: Cretaceous Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104686

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2262725-bizarre-dinosaur-had-a-mane-of-fur-and-rods-on-its-shoulders/#ixzz74NJjDZxd

How fossilization preserved a 310-million-year-old horseshoe crab’s brain

A newly analyzed specimen is a ‘one-in-a-million’ find, researchers say


The brain (white at center) of an extinct horseshoe crab called Euproops danae was fossilized in a clay mineral called kaolinite. The whole crab stretches only about 10 millimeters.
R. BICKNELL


By Rebecca Dzombak

AUGUST 20, 2021 

Paleontologists can spend years carefully splitting rocks in search of the perfect fossil. But with a 310-million-year-old horseshoe crab brain, nature did the work, breaking the fossil in just the right way to reveal the ancient arthropod’s central nervous system.

Of all soft tissues, brains are notoriously difficult to preserve in any form (SN: 10/31/16). Stumbling across such a detailed specimen purely by chance was “a one-in-a-million find, if not rarer,” says evolutionary paleontologist Russell Bicknell of the University of New England in Armidale, Australia.

The fossilized brain is remarkably similar to the brains of modern horseshoe crabs, giving clues to the arthropods’ evolution, Bicknell and colleagues report July 26 in Geology. And the brain’s peculiar mode of preservation could point paleontologists toward new places to look for hard-to-find fossils of soft tissues.

Horseshoe crabs have a fossil record spanning roughly 445 million years. But having a long fossil record is one thing. For many animals, including the crabs, fossils of their soft tissues are extremely uncommon because the tissues tend to degrade far quicker than fossilization can occur. Finding the delicate fatty structures that form a brain preserved in rock is especially rare. Only about 20 samples of fossilized arthropod neural tissue have been identified to date.

The newly described brain — part of a larger fossil of the extinct Euproops danae that Bicknell found at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History — was originally dug up from the Mazon Creek fossil beds roughly an hour southwest of Chicago. That site is one of the only known places in the world that could have saved the brain’s structure, says paleontologist Victoria McCoy of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

“The fossilization at Mazon Creek is really, really exceptional,” McCoy explains. “It’s interesting because the fossils are preserved inside concretions,” which are spherical rocks that form around a central nugget of material, such as a long-dead crab. Most concretions in other fossil beds have no fossils or fossils that are just bones and hard parts, but “Mazon Creek has really good, soft-tissue preservation inside these concretions,” she says.

That’s because the concretions there are partly made of an iron-carbonate mineral called siderite that only forms in low-oxygen environments. That low-oxygen setting almost certainly slowed tissue decay, the scientists say, giving it time to be preserved. In an oxygenated environment, the decay could have happened in weeks, and the brain would have probably wasted away too quickly.

The actual process of preservation was a multistep ordeal, Bicknell says. “First, of course, the horseshoe crab had to die.” As the crab decayed, surrounded by mud and not much oxygen, that siderite coated the crab’s body, allowing it and its fragile brain structure to be preserved. After the brain degraded, the siderite “mold” was filled in with a pale, clay mineral called kaolinite, creating a white brain structure that stands out starkly on the otherwise tan fossil. Over time, a sphere of rock formed around the fossil before eventually breaking open in a fortuitous way.

The brain structure of a modern horseshoe crab (shown in this confocal laser scan image) is strikingly similar to the brain of a recently discovered 310-million-year-old horseshoe crab.

R. BICKNELL ET AL/GEOLOGY 2021

Based on studies in similar modern environments, such as the North Norfolk marshes in England, the whole preservation process probably took fewer than 50 years, McCoy says. That’s much faster than some other fossilization processes, which can take thousands of years or more. “Neural tissue degrades fairly quickly. We have no reason to think it would be stable,” she says. “While we don’t completely understand how concretions form, all the evidence so far is that it’s the concretion itself that is the preservation force keeping things from decaying away.”

The high preservation quality in these siderite concretions may point paleontologists in new directions for finding soft-tissue fossils. Only several environments capable of producing siderite concretions in the rock record have been identified so far, but the sites could be practical targets for future fossil searches.

“The most important part here is that purely by chance, the fossil was split along its brain,” Bicknell says. The concretion was cracked in just the right orientation to reveal a near-perfect cross section of the brain’s structure. “If it hadn’t broken that way, we wouldn’t have this level of information. It was ultimately quite lucky.”

The preserved central nervous system lends insight into the ancient crab’s behavior, the researchers say. Because the fossil brain is so similar to the brains of modern horseshoe crabs, Bicknell says, it’s safe to say the ancient animal’s walking, breathing and even feeding habits were probably similar to horseshoe crabs’ today, including eating with their legs. “Imagine eating a hamburger with your elbows,” Bicknell says.


CITATIONS

R.D.C. Bicknell et al. Central nervous system of a 310-m.y.-old horseshoe crab: Expanding the taphonomic window for nervous system preservation. Geology. Published online July 26, 2021. doi: 10.1130/G49193.1.

D.M. Rudkin, G.A. Young and G.S. Nowlan. The oldest horseshoe crab: A new xiphosurid from Late Ordovician Konservat-Lagerstatten deposits, Manitoba, Canada. Palaeontology. Vol. 51, January 2008, p. 1. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2007.00746.x.

Report: Trump Admin Deployed Feds to Bring Harsher Charges on BLM Protesters

Surrounded by members of law enforcement, Donald Trump holds up an executive order he signed on “Safe Policing for Safe Communities” during an event in the Rose Garden at the White House on June 16, 2020, in Washington, D.C.ALEX WONG / GETTY IMAGES

BY Mike Ludwig, Truthout

PUBLISHED August 20, 2021

The protests and uprisings in defense of Black lives that spread like wildfire last summer after police killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other unarmed Black people were extraordinary demonstrations of public outrage and Black-led organizing. As it has done throughout the nation’s history, the federal government responded to Black resistance with repression and state violence.

The Trump administration used federal police and courts to deliberately target supporters of the movement for Black lives in order to “disrupt and discourage” Black organizing and freedom movements, according to a new report by Movement for Black Lives and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) clinic at the City University of New York School of Law. The report examines 326 criminal cases arising from Black Lives Matter protests in September and October of 2020, when federal charges were brought against protesters in multiple cities.

To delegitimize and disrupt the uprisings while taking control of the streets in local communities, the report concludes, the federal government spread anti-BLM propaganda and cast protesters as outside agitators, “violent radicals” and even domestic terrorists. Federal police were deployed across the country, and protesters were charged with federal crimes, allowing prosecutors to pursue tougher penalties than state or local law would allow.

Of the criminal cases against protesters examined, 92 percent could have been charged under an equivalent state or local law, but the federal penalties in 88 percent of these cases were “clearly harsher,” according to the report. The crackdown resulted in “stacked” and trumped-up charges against organizers and activists, with many facing years in prison without the possibility of parole.

At the same time, President Trump defended and even encouraged largely white crowds to gather for angry anti-lockdown protests, which were exploited by far-right extremists and inspired actual plots to detonate bombs and commit other acts of terrorism.

“The findings only confirm what Black organizers and movement leaders already understood: The federalization of protest-related charges was a deliberate and cynical effort to target and discourage those who protested in defense of Black lives,” said Princess Masilungan, a staff attorney at CLEAR, in a statement.

The report, titled “Struggle For Power: The Ongoing Persecution of Black Movement By The U.S. Government,” puts the federal crackdown on Black Lives Matter protesters in a historical context that was often missing from mainstream media coverage of the 2020 uprisings. Black power and resistance have always threatened the government’s economic interests and the social order that upholds white supremacy. For more than a century, the federal government has either dismissed or attempted to suppress Black social movements in order to “control Black mobility and quell collective action and power,” according to the report.

The report continues: “Throughout history, when Black social movements attract the nation’s or the world’s attention or fight our way onto the nation’s political agenda, we’re disparaged, cast as villains in the story of American prosperity, persecuted, and forced to defend ourselves and our communities against police, anti-Black policymakers, and U.S. armed forces.”

For example, in the 1960s, the FBI infiltrated the civil rights and Black power movements, putting activists and leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Angela Davis under heavy surveillance. In 1969, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which organized youth and community services in Black neighborhoods, a grave threat to “internal security.” Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton was targeted by the FBI’s secret COINTELPRO domestic spy program before Chicago police raided Hampton’s home and murdered him in December 1969.

The report notes that in 1910, two years after the FBI was established, the agency refused to investigate a wave of lynching across the South and said it had “no authority” to protect the civil rights of Black citizens.

“Historically, Black protestors have more often than not been met with governmental oppression and accompanying police violence as a result of our unwillingness to accept the systemic disregard for and mistreatment of Black lives,” said Amara Enyia, policy and research coordinator for the Movement for Black Lives, in a statement.

History repeated itself in 2020 as millions of people mobilized for the largest mass movement against police violence in U.S. history. The protests began after Floyd was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis in late May 2020. The uprising soon spread across the world, bringing global attention to systemic racism in the U.S. and amplifying abolitionist calls to defund and abolish the police and redirect tax dollars back to communities.

Clashes with police made national news, as did instances of property damage, which proponents of Black liberation argued should be expected, as people who are systematically denied political agency will rise up against a racist system that has robbed them for centuries. (Remember, the protests were against the police, and it was the police who were called to subdue them.) In most cases, there were conflicting accounts of who and what caused tensions to escalate as police in riot gear unloaded rubber bullets and tear gas on demonstrators. In Minneapolis, Louisville, New York City, and beyond, protesters and activists defended their neighborhoods from police violence.

Federal officials initially struck a sympathetic tone toward the protests, the report notes, but as demonstrations grew in size and intensity, Trump and his administration seized on an opportunity to divide and crush perceived opponents. Trump threatened state-sanctioned murder in response to “looting,” and with help from his Attorney General William Barr and the Justice Department, the administration quickly began characterizing the protests as being taken over by “anarchists,” “antifa” and domestic terrorists.

Meanwhile, the media continued to focus on isolated instances of property destruction and clashes between protesters and police, while largely ignoring the mutual aid and community organizing that was flourishing due to the demonstrations.

Not only did the Trump administration’s framing attempt to de-legitimize a movement led by Black activists, but it also helped justify a federal crackdown that in turn reinforced the Trump administration’s narratives about “outside agitators” and “anarchist cities.” However, of the dozens of criminal complaints examined by the report that described the defendant’s political affiliations, only one recounted that the defendant self-identified as an anarchist.

The report identified more than a dozen counter-protesters charged with federal crimes who are connected to far right paramilitary and white nationalist groups, including an individual who called-in bomb threats to pro-BLM and Black churches.

Mike Ludwig  is a staff reporter at Truthout based in New Orleans. He is also the writer and host of “Climate Front Lines,” a podcast about the people, places and ecosystems on the front lines of the climate crisis. Follow him on Twitter: @ludwig_mike.